Saint Mary’s University Will Host The International Venture Capital Investment Competition
November 13th, 2017
Venture Capital Investment Competition (VCIC) is a tri-continental organization, hosting competitions at universities around the world. Holding competitions for a decade, so far no Canadian university has stepped up to host the event. Venture Grade, a student-run venture capital fund at St. Mary’s University (SMU) is changing that.
“It’s a pretty spectacular opportunity,” said Ellen Farrell, professor of venture capital and entrepreneurship at SMU. “The nation will now realize that the Atlantic region has a real specialization in the area of venture capital.”
SMU, as the host, cannot enter competing teams into the event held on March 2, 2018, but it has been invited to an American competition n Februar 2018 in Boston. Applications for the SMU event have been already submitted by Dalhousie, University of New Brunswick and Memorial University of Newfoundland.
At the event the student teams will be given an imaginary $100 million to invest, and they must pick one of the pitching startups to back. Real venture capital investors serve as the judges to assess which teams do the best job.
Venture Grade is the only program of its kind in North America because the students are responsible for making connections and raising funds themselves and it has been meeting all of its targets for 2017, raising almost $200,000 since its inception in 2016 and is set to meet its $250,000 target in 2018.
To read the full artilce on Entrevestor, click here.